


With Added Dinosaur

by ML Mead (moonlightmead)



Category: Primeval, The Professionals
Genre: Crack, Crossover, M/M, Older Lads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 19:30:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlightmead/pseuds/ML%20Mead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bodie does not like being called a dinosaur. Not even by someone who catches them for a living.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Added Dinosaur

Hospital visiting had rarely been so much fun, thought Bodie. Wait until Doyle saw what he'd brought back for him. Better set the stage...

He slipped in through the garage doors and spent some minutes moving crates, tarpaulins and the odd breeze block around before depositing the heavy sports bag in the confined space he had created. He left it open a little and headed through into the house. 

Doyle was in the kitchen, squatting down in front of a washing machine which had been pulled out from the wall, its hose coiled around a toolbox. Bodie eyed the denim stretched over Doyle's backside happily and rested his hands on Doyle's shoulders.

"Any luck?"

Doyle craned his neck round. "Yeah. Filter was blocked. How was Jax?"

"Delighted to see me, even more delighted to have something to wear that wasn't open at the back, said thanks for the magazine, and said he wouldn't be rescuing any more cats."

"Silly bastard shouldn't have been showing off in the first place. At his age."

"Our age."

"What? Yeah, well, just goes to show. We don't go climbing trees and breaking bones any more, do we? Respectable pensioners, that's us."

Bodie agreed somewhat sorrowfully. He brightened, "Come into the garage. Got a surprise for you."

"For me? You shouldn't have." Doyle straightened, rubbed a towel over his hands, and turned to follow Bodie. Suspicion shaded his voice. "If you're going to jump me, think again. We have a bed for that. And I'm feeling my age now, too."

"What do you take me for?" Bodie was injured. "I got you a present, and this is the thanks I get?"

"A present?" Doyle switched the light on. There was a high-pitched squawk and a rustling. "What was that?" Spotting the makeshift den, he moved forward. "What the hell? What is this?"

Rooting around in the space before him was a... creature. It was about a foot and a half long, and something between a reptile and a hairless mammal in appearance. Its overlarge head was swinging as it looked down at the floor and to each side and pattered its feet on the concrete in frustration. It raised its head high and screeched again.

Doyle looked at it and then transferred his gaze to Bodie in clear disbelief.

"Thanks, Bodie. Why have you brought me an alien badger that screams like a..." Words failed him.

"Baby?" suggested Bodie helpfully.

Doyle eyed him. "Yeah. Like a baby. What am I supposed to be doing with this?"

"Up to you. Just don't eat it. No recipe for it."

"What, and you in the SAS? A hundred and one ways to roast a squirrel?"

"Yeah, okay. Squirrel, snake, fine, but..." he waved a hand at it. "Whatever this is, no."

"Whatever this is?" Doyle narrowed his eyes. "You don't know?"

"Well, I sort of know. They were shouting all over the place. A dictydon, apparently." Bodie paused, clearly waiting for Doyle to say it.

Doyle said it. 

"A _dic_ -tydon?" He gave the animal a dubious look. "So you have brought me a pornographic... animal. One question. Why?"

Bodie pasted on an expression of innocence. "Well, you enjoyed looking after Tara's horrible mutt while she was away. I thought you might like something else to look after for a while."

Doyle transferred his gaze to Bodie. "Two questions, actually. Whose is it? Who is going to turn up complaining about this... Dickie Don... going missing? Who actually owns this... this thing?"

"That's three quest-"

"Bodie!"

"Oh, all right." Bodie crouched down to place a bucket near the animal, and straightened. "I got him at the hospital. Was on the way out, saw a whole heap of soldiers racing in, a couple of civilians with them, recognised one of the officers. So when they started evacuating visitors out, I slipped into a storeroom, kept quiet, and listened. Knew it was him."

"Him?"

"Him, yeah. Becker. Hilary Becker. Him from that seminar, remember it?" 

"What, that conference? Where they had you and a bunch of others in to give new government agencies the benefit of your experience? All soldier boys together?" Evidently Doyle's lack of an invitation rankled still. 

"Yeah, that one. Well, he was one of the new boys." Bodie had not enjoyed the conference, with its presentations on transparency in multi-agency co-operation, and successful press management in crisis situations. He had rolled his eyes conspiratorially at Becker and in the networking session had been taken aback to find that Becker clearly felt the day was worthwhile and was not interested in the opinions of retired operatives from a different era. Bodie did not like to be thought of as superannuated. He preferred to think of himself as seasoned.

"Which lot was he with?"

"Ah. Well. Very cagey, he was. Reckoned he was with something called the Ark. Dangerous wildlife. I gave Anson a ring, asked him what he knew."

"Yeah? What did he have to say?"

Bodie's lip curled. "It's not actually an ark. Not the sort with Noah in it. It's ARC with a C, apparently. Anomaly Research Centre. Anson reckoned it was all very Jurassic Park. Cloning or some such. Coming up with prehistoric animals. Said Anson, anyway." 

"Okay. So. You were in the hospital. Eavesdropping. On this Becker. And then?"

Bodie laughed. "And then a whole herd of these little buggers came galloping along the corridor, soldiers in hot pursuit. One of them did a sharp right into the storeroom, I grabbed it, popped it in the bag I'd taken Jax's clothes in, waited a bit, and then out I came. No one batted an eyelid." He smirked. 

"So you have stolen this... thing... to wind up Becker? Because Becker wound you up at that day out?"

"Well... Okay. Yeah." 

Doyle sighed. 

The next few days were eventful. 

. . . 

"Bodie! Your animal has eaten my bike manuals!"

"It's not eaten them, Ray. Look, they're still there. Well, sort of."

"Shredded."

"It's nesting. It's probably cold. You didn't want him in the house, after all."

. . . 

"Bodie! Your bloody beast is snoring on my cushion."

"Don't move it. It looks sweet there. Almost as sweet as—" Another cushion hit Bodie in the face.

. . .

"Bodie! If it doesn't stop squealing like that, the neighbours are going to be reporting us for abuse or something."

"It's lonely, Ray. It's a pack animal." Bodie had been reading Wikipedia. "Look, I'll take it back to the ARC tomorrow." 

. . . 

Tomorrow dawned. Bodie remembered his promise. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought Doyle was a bit subdued as Bodie lifted the animal into the sports bag and packed it snugly in, surrounded by the shreds of the bike manual.

"Hmm. Think you need a blanket, don't you? You wait there. I'll be right back."

When he returned, Doyle was scratching the beast behind its ears and it was crooning. He cleared his throat, and Doyle jumped guiltily.

"You sure you don't want to keep him?"

"No," Doyle was adamant. "Get rid of it. Before your soldier boys come to collect it."

. . . 

Bodie parked the car at a safe distance and regarded the devastated ARC building in disbelief. The shouts of builders and crane operators came faintly to him. He put the car back in gear and turned for home.

. . . 

Doyle was not amused. 

"So you found a top-secret animal from a top-secret project and now the top-secret building is wrecked and we're stuck with it?" He snatched the sleeve of his leather jacket away from the diictodon (as Bodie now insisted it was spelt). "All because some upstart Sandhurst graduate upset you?"

Bodie could see Doyle's point. He made a phone call. 

. . . 

They met in a London park. An impossibly young couple accompanied the upstart Sandhurst graduate. They advanced cautiously on the bag, the blonde punky girl stopping to glare at both Doyle and Bodie impartially. 

"If he's hurt..."

"He's fine, Abby." The geeky looking youth was already opening the bag. "He – ouch." Neither Abby nor Becker looked surprised as the youth winced and tucked his hand under his armpit. 

"It doesn't like it if you do that," offered Doyle. "You can scratch its neck, though."

Bodie blinked at Doyle.

"We'd have come for it anyway," commented Becker.

"Yeah, right. Your lot never even knew."

"Saw you at the hospital. Didn't know you'd lifted one. But when Connor and Abby started insisting that one of them was brooding for its mate, well, it wasn't hard to guess. Seemed in character."

Bodie wasn't sure how to take that. 

"Anyway, yeah. We've had a few housekeeping issues to take care of." Becker's face looked distant for a minute. "But we're on it now." He softened. "Thanks for looking after it. The kids" – he gestured – "need a boost at the moment."

Bodie nodded at him. "No problem. Give it a cushion. It'll curl up quietly then." He and Doyle turned to head home. 

. . . 

Back home, he had to ask. 

"Do you miss it?"

Doyle came up behind him, slipped his arms around him, and bit him gently. 

"Naah. Got me very own dinosaur. Haven't I?"

 

~o~o~o~


End file.
